TY - JOUR
AU - Grubb,Farley
TI - The Continental Dollar: How Much Was Really Issued?
JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL - No. 13047
PY - 2007
Y2 - April 2007
DO - 10.3386/w13047
UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13047
L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13047.pdf
N1 - Author contact info:
Farley Grubb
University of Delaware
Economics Department
Newark, DE 19716
Tel: 302/831-1905
Fax: 302/831-6968
E-Mail: grubbf@udel.edu
AB - The U.S. Congress issued paper money called Continental Dollars to finance the American Revolution. The story of the Continental Dollar is familiar to all -- a lot were issued and hyper-inflation ensued. However, the details of this story are less well known. Scholars even disagree over how much was issued -- disagree by over 50 percent. Meaningful monetary analysis of the Continental Dollar cannot proceed given this confusion in the data. Evidence is gathered here to reconcile past estimates and establish the exact amount and time path of Continental Dollars emitted thereby overcoming the entropy that has crept into the historical record.
ER -